By Dexter Reyes
I am hyped up for this UFC 148 Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen rematch, and any real fight fan whether it’s boxing or MMA will be tuned in for this event. I honestly believe that this UFC 148 event will break the Pay-Per-View slump for the Ultimate Fighting Championship and outdo the last boxing PPV between Manny Pacquiao vs. Timothy Bradley which reportedly did around 850-900,000 PPV buys. I predict the UFC 148 Silva vs. Sonnen II PPV will do well over 1 million buys, and end up around 1.2 to 1.5 million buys.
The reason I say this is because the amount of buzz this event has received and the hype and marketing surrounding this event has been top notch. When Pacquiao vs. Bradley was announced, nobody cared because nobody knew who Timothy Bradley was, and the fight wasn’t really pushed until fight week. Plus the UFC always puts on stacked undercards, UFC 148 will feature UFC hall of famer Tito Ortiz in his last fight before retirement, and he will fight Forrest Griffin a rubbermatch. How many times do you see a star boxer in boxing fight on an undercard as a co-feature like Tito Ortiz on the undercard of UFC 148 Silva vs. Sonnen II? You won’t see it because boxers have huge ego’s and promoters want to milk their stars by putting them as headliners only. Just watch the UFC 148 weigh-ins, that had to be the largest crowd for any combat sport event in North America ever, it looked to be at least 8 thousand in attendance and at least a couple thousand more who were denied access to the free public event.
Watch UFC 148: Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen weigh-in video:
Floyd Mayweather Jr. is still the cash cow of combat sports his PPV with Miguel Cotto did 1.5 million buys and every time Mayweather fights his PPV’s break a million buys and he earns over $20 million each fight. The biggest earner in the UFC is Anderson Silva. Silva is a star in Brazil, and he is rumored to be making close to $7 million for UFC 148 because he gets a cut of PPV. Compare Silva’s $7 million to Manny Pacquiao’s $6 million, who says UFC stars don’t get paid well? If anything Manny Pacquiao one of the biggest boxing icons in the world is the one who is severely underpaid.
The real driving force behind UFC 148 isn’t President Dana White, it’s Chael Sonnen, the most interesting man in all of Mixed Martial Arts, the man can talk trash like no other, and that is the key to promotion — controversy.
The best promotions have always been when there is some sort of controversy involving a villain. Chael Sonnen, like boxers Mike Tyson, Muhammad Ali, and Floyd Mayweather Jr. brings that element of trash talk that the MMA world isn’t used too. Say what you want but the more you hate the guy the more you pay to see the guy lose, that’s how it always works from pro wrestling to boxing, and now in MMA — the trash talking bad guy always sells.
This is just another wake up call to boxing promoters to get their stuff together and learn from the UFC because they give the fans the fights they want to see.
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